The Centers for Disease Control came out with their 2012 report on births in the US, and they discovered that out of almost four million births in the country, over 1.6 million babies were born in this year to unwed mothers. You can read the entire report at the cdc.gov website, and while I truly appreciate the old saying that figures don’t lie, but liars figure, I can’t help but be struck by the almost complete loss of any notion of alarm by the growing so-called freedom of our society to tinker with morals and seemingly completely being blind to the cost of this tinkering.

These are real lives, folks. Real people, real children, who are going to have to live with the consequences of our actions or our inactions. However, we’re always tempted to believe that we live in the best of times, the worst of times. We humans have this amazing ability to be intoxicated by either elation or despondency, and practically live in either one of these two fantasy worlds with all that intoxication brings. And that’s rarely a good thing, by the way. So if our faith, our commitment to being Orthodox on purpose is ever to have any meaning at all beyond just wanting to be better people, we have to come to grips with the reality that our faith is meant to actually mimic the words of Jesus: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We aren’t meant to just be better people. Most self-help books could do that for us. You don’t need faith to be committed to self-improvement. No, we are meant to be new people. We are meant to be like Christ.

Our gospel lesson gives us a peek into how to best deal with this kind of cold splash of water in the face, that seeing the world as it is and not being overwhelmed is not only possible but actually normal life for the person of faith. Look at Mark 1:9-15.

In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. When he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens open and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel.”

You know what fascinates me about this isn’t any suggestion that the Lord was unwilling to follow the path that was laid before him, but that Mark clearly wants to convey two important truths in this revelation: Awareness of your mission motivates and even drives you and God isn’t shy when it comes to redeeming people he loves. This is no lassiez-faire rescue attempt by God; this is serious. There will be another time in the Lord’s ministry right before his crucifixion where we’ll see this same conflict played out when he tells his Father, “Not my will but your will be done.”

Jesus Christ is driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit for the very purpose of having Lord Jesus understand completely who he was in his flesh and that God had come to redeem the world. This work that the Lord does in the wilderness is mimicking our own work of discovering ourselves and being disciplined in our spiritual lives. Having the Spirit drive our motivations, that makes us who we really are.

Today what drives you? What motivates you? Is your faith at a high enough priority in your life that you see the world around you and you participate in this urgent rescue mission initiated by God himself? What is your part in this rescue mission to the people he loves so very much, and by extension calls us to love as he loves them? Is the Spirit driving you or are you driving yourself?

It’s actually a scary thing to be Spirit-led, because that leads us almost always to places outside of our comfort zone and into places where our true love is going to be tested and revealed, but that is the only path to spiritual maturity and growth in our hearts. Today, use all the foundational spiritual tools available to you in the Orthodox Church and strengthen your will to say yes to the leading of God’s Spirit in your life. To be sure, this is probably going to take you to tough places, but all that prep work and daily prayer, regular confession, regular worship, participating in the Divine Mysteries of the Church, and making your faith a top priority will pay off in facing every test well and accomplishing your calling as the Lord extends his rescue mission to all around you through your obedience. This is the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. This is the path to being Orthodox on purpose.